Climate and Social Stress:

Implications for Security Analysis

Authors:
John D. Steinbruner, Paul C. Stern, and Jo L. Husbands, Editors;
Committee on Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Social and
Political Stresses; Board on Environmental Change and Society; Division
of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Research
Council Authoring Organizations

Description:
Climate
change can reasonably be expected to increase the frequency and
intensity of a variety of potentially disruptive environmental
events-slowly at first, but then more quickly. It is prudent to expect
to be surprised by the way in which these ...Read Morehttp://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14682

This
week in energy, let’s go nuclear for a change. And let’s start with the
Obama administration’s plans for a new generation of nuclear power.
This time around things will be smaller and ostensibly safer. This new
nuclear generation was given greater impetus on Tuesday when the
administration announced it would fund up to 50% of the cost of a 5-year
project to design and commercialize small, modular reactors. Who’s
funding the other 50%? The project, which hopes to be operational by
2022, will be led by Babcock & Wilcox…Read more...http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Obamas-Nuclear-Power-Plans.html

And let’s start with the Obama administration’s plans for a new
generation of nuclear power. This time around things will be smaller and
ostensibly safer.

This new nuclear generation was given greater impetus on Tuesday when
the administration announced it would fund up to 50% of the cost of a
5-year project to design and commercialize small, modular reactors.

Who’s funding the other 50%? The project, which hopes to be operational
by 2022, will be led by Babcock & Wilcox energy technology company
of Charlotte, in partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority and
Bechtel International. And of course, we can’t forget Bill Gates, a key
private investor.

What is unique about the project is the small modular reactor design.
They are about one-third the size of existing reactors. The technology
used has already been implemented by the US Navy, but not
commercialized. The administration is keen to point out that this new
nuclear generation represents lower upfront costs, higher safety
standards and greater flexibility—they can be used in small, remote
areas that cannot support traditional reactors.

They are assembled at a factory site and transported, ready to use, to their intended location.

In terms of costs, these small modular reactors have a $250 million
price tag, compared with as much as $9 billion for the typical large
reactors currently built in the US.

What will this new nuclear generation mean for consumers’ utility bills?
Well, no one can say with any certainty just yet. Whether these new
reactors would translate into cheaper electricity prices has not been
definitively demonstrated, though it is of course an ultimate goal.

Low natural gas prices are also a bit of a worry for the nuclear industry as a whole.

While nuclear is experiencing a bit of a revival in the US and coal
languishes in its death throes, globally, coal is enjoying gains. Some
1,200 new coal plants are in the works worldwide—the bulk of them in
China and India—as countries take advantage of cheap coal prices in the
US. But even Europe is importing increasing amounts of coal from the US.
US coal exports have reached a decade high.

For Europe, this is troubling. As the European public puts increasing
pressure on governments to abandon any dreams of fracking shale gas
reserves over environmental concerns, the energy gap is being filled in
by more polluting coal. This is the subject of our special investor
piece today. There is good news—and bad. While the European Parliament
has rejected a fracking ban proposal, this doesn’t mean we’re about to
see a shale gas free-for-all. Hurdles and pitfalls abound.

Another developing trend that has caught our eye is what appears to be
the declining attraction of Canada’s oil sands among US companies. A
recent report put out by Peters & Co. energy investment bank of
Calgary notes that there are some $17 billion in Canadian oil sands
assets up for sale right now. The logic holds that US companies are
trying to get out. The report points out that the $17 billion is the
equivalent of assets sold throughout the past decade.

Finally, amid all the hubbub of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA)
dramatic report about the US overtaking Saudi Arabia as the world’s
largest oil (oops, hydrocarbons) producer, we’ve missed something in
that figure-manipulating report: A largely unnoticed blurb about
California’s energy woes end with the information that the Monterrey
Formation in Southern California has 15.4 billion barrels of recoverable
crude oil. This puts Bakken (North Dakota) to shame. It’s four times
the volume of Bakken.

That's it for the news this week - i hope you enjoy our report below and have a great weekend.

Richard Gilbert, G&MOn
November 12, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) released
World Energy Outlook 2012. Globally, the report provoked a flurry of
inaccurate reporting about the prospects for U.S. oil production,
consumption, and exports. The Globe and Mail focused more on the
implications of an increase in U.S. oil production for Canadian oil
exports. . .http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/article5517963.ece

Friday, November 23, 2012

The
city’s aging natural-gas pipeline system is to blame, according to a
new study by researchers at Boston and Duke Universities. Their findings
appear this week in the journal Environmental Pollution.The new study
comes in the wake of devastating fires fueled by natural gas during
Hurricane Sandy. Potential damage to gas pipeline pressure regulators,
caused by flooding in Hurricane Sandy, has raised ongoing safety
concerns in New York and New Jersey. “While our study was not intended
to assess explosion risks, we came across…Read more...http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Over-3000-Leaks-Found-in-Study-of-Bostons-Natural-Gas-Pipelines.html

This blog has ceased publication and the contents, all 1,600 blog posts,
will remain available in archive status. I appreciate all the support
from readers over the past five years.

The purpose of this blog was to have a “voice” in the dialog about
nuclear energy, the global nuclear renaissance, and to be able to shape
public views. This blog did not merely report the news.

It attempted to answer the "so what" question when it comes to nuclear energy developments.

I think it achieved those objectives. I had a good run. Five years is a long time in the blogsphere.

This blog is called 'Idaho Samizdat" because I spent 20 years working at
the Idaho National Laboratory and have the dust from the volcanic
cinders of the Arco desert in my shoes.

The Idaho lab is the home of the birth of the nation's commercial
nuclear power industry. The "samizdat" part came from the fact it is a
Russian word that means "self-published," which is a great name for a
blog.

The blog came to be named "Idaho Samizdat" to distinguish its online
presence both for its geographic birthplace and its heritage as a source
of "unofficial" information. This blog did not speak for any vendor,
agency, or organization.

Publication began in January 2007. The blog was in continuous
publication since then. For the month of April 2012, this blog had over
14,000 visitors and over 45,000 page views according to Google
Analytics. About 63 percent of those visitors came from the U.S., and
the rest came from 70 other countries.

As
expected, there have been a number of further press releases made after
the announcement that the DOE had selected the Generation mPower SMR
for its first round of funding and cooperation. Most of these have been
from parties who were not selected; below is a Westinghouse press
release, commenting on the plans to build SMR plants at Ameren
Missouri's Callaway site (which already has a very late design
Westinghouse PWR plant, and plenty of space on site for further
construction since Callaway Unit 2 was never built.)

Westinghouse Very Much Interested in New U.S. DOE Funding Opportunity to Develop and License its Passively Safe SMR Design

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 20, 2012 – Westinghouse Electric Company today confirmed its interest in applying for a new funding opportunity to be issued by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy
in order to develop and license SMR technology. Upon successfully
collaborating with the DOE in what would be a second phase of its
investment program, the Westinghouse SMR would receive investment funds
to accelerate the development and licensing of the passively safe
design, which has the potential to provide an economic, secure source of
emissions-free electricity generation to the world’s rapidly changing
and diverse markets.

“The
Westinghouse SMR has tremendous potential to advance clean nuclear
energy technology and sustain U.S. nuclear industry leadership and
competitiveness, and we have a partner in Ameren Missouri that is
committed to collaborating with Westinghouse in this groundbreaking
industry innovation," said Danny Roderick, Westinghouse president and
chief executive officer. "We look forward to cooperatively working with
the DOE to ultimately secure and match investment funds.”

“Being
the first-to-market with an American-manufactured SMR, Westinghouse,
an American company headquartered in Pennsylvania for more than a
century, will continue its global leadership of nuclear reactor
technology and development. Using DOE NP2010 cost-share funds,
Westinghouse delivered successfully the AP1000® reactor. Today, thousands are employed constructing four AP1000
units in the Southeastern United Sates that will ultimately produce
safe, clean and reliable electricity for many generations to come. We
are more than ready, willing and able to succeed again with a new DOE
investment opportunity for SMR technology.”

After successfully
negotiating a cooperative agreement with the DOE and securing the
investment funds, the Westinghouse SMR team, including the NexStart SMR Alliance,
a consortium of current and prospective nuclear plant owners and
operators; cooperative, municipal and investor-owned electric service
providers; and, other public and private enterprises, would work
collaboratively to execute a proposed project having an objective of
receiving from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) design certification of the Westinghouse SMR and then a combined
construction and operating license for a Westinghouse SMR at Ameren
Missouri's Callaway Energy Center.
Additionally, the group will work to bring other economic development
opportunities to the State of Missouri and elsewhere within the United
States.

Warner Baxter, president and CEO of Ameren Missouri,
said that a next phase of the DOE’s investment funding process is
significant from both economic and environmental perspectives. “The
advent of small modular reactors will further ensure that the United
States continues to become increasingly energy independent, while also
creating a transformational economic development opportunity for the
state of Missouri and our country, potentially creating thousands of
sustainable, clean energy jobs across a broad spectrum. Ameren
Missouri, our alliance and the entire state of Missouri stand ready to
capitalize on this important project that will also help create a
cleaner energy portfolio for our state and our country.”

The Westinghouse SMR is a 225 MWe integral pressurized
water reactor (PWR) with all primary components located inside of the
reactor vessel. It is the company's next product innovation utilizing
passive safety systems and proven components, as well as modular
construction techniques – all realized and already licensed in the
nuclear industry-leading AP1000® nuclear power plant design, the first Generation III+ reactor to receive Design

Certification
from the U.S. NRC and currently being built in China and the U.S.
Westinghouse believes that by building upon the concepts and advances in
– technology achieved in the Westinghouse AP1000
reactor, the Westinghouse SMR design will provide licensing,
construction and operational certainty that no other SMR supplier can
match with competitive economics.

Westinghouse Electric Company, a group company of Toshiba Corporation
(TKY:6502), is the world's pioneering nuclear energy company and is a
leading supplier of nuclear plant products and technologies to
utilities throughout the world. Westinghouse supplied the world's
first pressurized water reactor in 1957 in Shippingport, Pa. Today,
Westinghouse technology is the basis for approximately one-half of the
world's operating nuclear plants.

Here are the summaries of today's Fukushima commentary and updates. Please click the link for the full reports.

Commentary – Is Nuclear Energy Losing its Political Thunder in Japan?
- It seems that the antinuclear politicians in Japan are “circling the
wagons” in preparation for next month’s election. Antinuclear
politicians in the Japanese congress (Diet) are joining forces to try
and make the abolition of nuclear energy the major election issue, but
it seems they are fighting a losing battle. The largely antinuclear
Japanese Press is doing its best to abet the antinuclear political
effort, yet even they are beginning to realize that there are bigger
fish to fry before December 16.

Other
updates - Tokyo’s gubernatorial race has split into two camps over the
nuclear issue... On May 14, 2011, the Hamaoka nuclear unit #5 had a
major seawater leak while it was shutting down due to Naoto Kan’s
worst-case-earthquake-based mandate... The local government in Shimane
Prefecture has completed the nation's first emergency plans for the 30km
radius around Shimane nuclear station... Higher than anticipated
radiation levels make the news when discovered by Japanese citizens,
even as far away as Taiwan... Recent studies published in the United
States have allegedly “proved” that natural background radiation (BKG)
causes cancer.

Emotional evaluation of risks should favor nuclear energy

Debates
about risky technologies should start with emotions to find the moral
values about technology that people consider important. By starting with
emotional responses, it might be possible to identify misinformation
that can be corrected, but it is also possible to identify fears and
apprehension that is based on real concerns that must be addressed
before the technology can be deployed. On a number of emotional
measures, nuclear energy is superior to available alternatives.

DOE is talking with GE about a second laser enrichment facility to enrich nuclear tails. the DoE has started talks with GE-Hitachi (GEH) subsidiary GLE to
evaluate the possibility of building another laser enrichment plant at
the Paducah site to enrich its stockpiles of high-assay depleted uranium
tails. The DoE owns some 100,000 tonnes of such tails, which are stored
at Paducah as well as at the shut down Portsmouth diffusion enrichment
plant in Ohio.http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/11/laser-enrichment-for-100000-tons-of.html

Dear Readers
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving.
I am joining the crush of cars that will hit the interstates today to make it
to a family gathering tomorrow. And sometime here and there I will have a
chance to catch up on some of the news - hopefully there won't be too much
(fat chance of that). At least I'm glad that I don't have to travel through LAX
today. Best regards to all.
Michele Kearney

says
that the 4°C scenarios are potentially devastating: the inundation of
coastal cities; increasing risks for food production potentially leading
to higher under and malnutrition rates; many dry regions becoming
dryer, wet regions wetter; unprecedented heat waves in many regions,
especially in the tropics; substantially exacerbated water scarcity in
many regions; increased intensity of tropical cyclones; and irreversible
loss of biodiversity, including coral reef systems.

. . .

The
report notes, however, that a 4°C world is not inevitable and that with
sustained policy action warming can still be held below 2°C, which is
the goal adopted by the international community and one that already
brings some serious damages and risks to the environment and human
populations.

IAEA Data on Sensitive Iranian Stockpile Mislead News Media

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 2012 (IPS) -
News stories on the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
report suggested new reasons to fear that Iran is closer to a “breakout”
capability than ever before, citing a nearly 50-percent increase in its
stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium and the installation of
hundreds of additional centrifuges at the Fordow enrichment
installation.
But the supposedly dramatic increase in the stockpile of uranium that
could theoretically be used to enrich to weapons grade is based on
misleading figures in the Nov. 16 IAEA report. The actual increase in
the level of that stockpile appears to be 20 percent.
The coverage of the completion of the installation of 2,800
centrifuges at Fordow, meanwhile, continued the media practice of
ignoring the linkage between large numbers of idle centrifuges and
future negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme.
The latest round of media coverage of the Iran issue again highlights
the failure of major news outlets to reflect the complexity and
political subtleties of the Iranian enrichment programme.
The IAEA report created understandable confusion about the stockpile
of uranium enriched to 20-percent – also called 20 percent LEU (low
enriched uranium). It does not use the term “stockpile” at all. Instead,
it says Iran produced 43 kg of 20-percent enriched uranium during the
three months since the August report and cited a total of 135 kg of
20-percent uranium now “in storage”, compared with only 91.4 kg in
August.
Based on those figures, Reuters suggested that Iran might already be
two-thirds of the way to the level of 200-250 kg that “experts say”
could be used to build a bomb. The Guardian’s Julian Borger wrote that
Iran was enriching uranium at a pace that would reach the Israeli “red
line” in just seven months.
But analysis of the figures in the last two reports shows that the
IAEA total for 20-percent LEU “in storage” actually includes 20-percent
LEU that has been sent to the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant in Esfahan
for conversion to powder for fuel plates to be used by Iran’s medical
reactor but not yet converted.

The global community has committed itself to holding warming
below 2°C to prevent “dangerous” climate change, the sum total of
current policies—in place and pledged—will very likely lead to warming
far in excess of this level. Indeed, present emission trends put the
world plausibly on a path toward 4°C warming within this century.

Levels greater than 4°C warming could be possible within this century
should climate sensitivity be higher, or the carbon cycle and other
climate system feedbacks more positive, than anticipated. Current
scientific evidence suggests that even with the current commitments and
pledges fully implemented, there is roughly a 20 percent likelihood of
exceeding 4°C by 2100, and a 10 percent chance of 4°C being exceeded as
early as the 2070s.

Warming would not stop there. Because of the slow response of the
climate system, the greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations that
would lead to warming of 4°C by 2100 would actually commit the world to
much higher warming, exceeding 6°C or more, in the long term, with
several meters of sea-level rise ultimately associated with this
warming.

Henning Gloystein, ReutersNew
natural gas discoveries and rising demand are changing gas from a
cluster of regional markets into a global marketplace, but instead of
becoming a second oil market gas is likely to become more like
coal. ;Because gas and oil were being produced largely by the
same exporters and both fuels were often used in the same industries,
gas has historically been pegged to the oil market through long-term
contracts.http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/21/energy-gas-coal-idUSL5E8M969T20121121